Copy of Contemporary Art in Context: Natalie Baxter

Barr produces about ten free online games a year. They are not games in the traditional sense, because the gamer cannot always “win.” They are thought-provoking pseudo-performance pieces in which the player is a participant as well as a viewer. Barr’s games often focus on banal subjects such as airplane safety or museum visits. When designing a game, Barr analyzes the topic and its potential for philosophical twists, such as satirizing video games that promote violence. He believes the reason games can be frustrating is that his overriding interest is in inviting the player to think about what they are doing while doing it, which can be off-putting to those used to an immersive experience.

One of Barrʼs best-known games is a collaboration with performance artist Marina Abramović (b. 1946 Serbia), in which the player attends Ambramović’s performance piece The Artist Is Present. Barr explores the frustration of waiting in a long line to see a museum exhibit. He sets the player back to the end of the line if they visit another website or app while playing the game. His emphasis is to communicate an idea in game form, regardless if the result of playing it is fun or annoying.

The combination of film and works of art came about in the 1950s–60s with the advent of happenings and temporary art performances, the only documentation of which was photograph or film. By the mid-1970s, the genre was further exploited by its appropriation to the new medium of video. Video artworks evolved through the 1980s–90s to be accepted universally as an art form. In the 21st century, the sophistication of digitally augmented video games elevated this genre to a fine art form now taught in universities.

ARTIST Q&A
What are some of the biggest influences on your work, including other artists or things outside of the arts?
Pippin Barr: Here are just a few of the greatest hits in terms of people I think about on a day-to-day basis:

Marina Abramović. I like how her work focuses on the experience of being present and in your body, something that videogames often work against. Collaborating with her has led me to thinking a lot about the presence of the player in my work.
Gregor Schneider is an installation artist who I ﬁnd deeply inspiring, particularly his ideas around architecture that hides other architecture (walls in front of walls), or architecture that changes over time (his Haus u r) or is an exact duplicate of another space.
Robert Yang is a game designer who makes queer games. I ﬁnd the ways he writes and thinks about his work deeply inspiring, despite the surface-level difference in our games.
Jacques Tati’s movies, and especially Playtime, inﬂuence me in terms of making work that is comical, but still manages to be about something (social norms, architecture, etc).
Chess is a weird and consistent part of my life, from joining a chess club as a teenager (and swiftly leaving) to making variations on chess these days and still playing a bit.

Do you have specific strategies, rituals, or routines that help you work and/or generate ideas?
PB: I’m very habit-oriented—I do various borderline superstitious things. The most important thing I do, though, is write down absolutely every game design idea I have the instant I think of it (I use an app called Things on my phone). There are hundreds of ideas listed there right now, and most of them are pretty bad of course, but writing them down encourages my brain to have more of them, and it means that when I want to start a new project, I always have a deep well of ideas to choose from.

In terms of idea generation, I ﬁnd it powerful to think in terms variation to get unstuck with design. I’ll pick some simple-enough game like pong or chess, and then I’ll challenge myself to come up with as many possible variants of that game as I can imagine. Pong, except you can’t see the ball. Chess, except the pawns have to be convinced to advance into battle through dialog. It’s never failed me yet.

Describe your process for assessing an idea for a game.
PB: It’s simple: most of the time what I look for is that when I describe the game in a sentence or so, does it make me laugh? I’m most interested in projects that have some kind of comic or absurd element to them. There’s a couple of reasons for that. The ﬁrst is that, quite frankly, if something makes me laugh, I’m more likely to be happy working on it, and that’s not a small thing. The other thing is that I often feel that comedy and humor are great ways to explore quite diverse subjects—art doesn’t have to be “light” just because it’s funny, you can do a lot.

Once an idea makes me laugh, I get going. The other big thing I think about assessing ideas is don’t spend too much time thinking about whether it’s really that good, get started making it real. You learn the vast majority about what your idea is in the process of working on it.

What level of social criticism does your art have, or do you not see it that way?
PB: I remember saying a while ago that I didn’t think my games were political, only to be corrected by the person I was talking to that “everything is political.” At the time I didn’t think about it too much, but it’s also obviously true. A lot of the work I’ve made has either directly or indirectly connected to social and political issues I ﬁnd important. I’m not always striving toward that, but you can’t help but be embroiled in your cultural context.

Most obviously I made A Series of Gunshots as a critique of the trivialization of gun violence in videogames (and in day-to-day life in some countries). There I was trying to make something that could support critical thought about that subject—though it was also not funny at all, and hard to work on.

DISCUSSION
Show images and a video (a quick YouTube search will result in a few examples) of Barr’s The Artist Is Present. Ask students to identify both similarities and differences between it and the games that they like to play. Show a few additional games by Barr such as Let’s Play: Ancient Greek Punishment or his many variations of chess. For multiple perspectives, you might include Momo Pixel’s Hair Nah. Ask: Do games have to be fun? What is the point of playing a game you cannot win? Are video games a form of art? Can games share an important message? Who are games made for?

STUDIO EXPERIENCES

Think of a well-known childrenʼs game. What are the rules of the game? How many new versions of the game can you make by changing one or more of the rules?
Work with a partner to create a simple drawing game for two players. What rules will make the game fun and challenging, but not too difficult to play?
Think about the kinds of games you like to play on a smartphone, computer, or gaming console. Create a list of things that make them fun. Next, develop an idea for a game that features none of those things. Create a drawing of your “not fun” game with a list of rules or actions.
Working in a small group, create a concept for a simple video game. What is the game based on? What will the player try to do? Create character and level designs. Then present your game to the rest of your class for feedback.

Video Games, Philosophy, and Art

Experimental Game Making

Art History: Video Art

About the Artist